“I will not,” said Borg. “I told you once and I told you why. It needs no further elaboration. Goodbye, Mr. Fonesca.”
Borg hung up. Lew did too and went to the window.
Lew moved to the office window, lifted the blinds and gazed at the traffic beyond the DQ parking lot. Traffic was almost nonexistent at two in the morning, but the few cars that did go by sent out a soft whistle of wind as they passed, leaving a lull Lew found comforting.
Then the headache came. Lew knew it would, expected it, almost welcomed it. He went into his room, closed the door, closed the blinds tightly, unfolded a blanket he took from his closet and draped it over the window.
Lew’s family had a history of headaches. His mother, Angela, Uncle Tonio, the others, all got headaches, all the same, always on the right side of the head. When it got bad, the only thing that helped was darkness and moaning. Moaning was essential.
When the headaches were really bad, Angie heard music that wasn’t there. Uncle Tonio saw flashing colored lights. Lew sometimes smelled gardenias or barbecue sauce. This time he smelled, heard and saw nothing.
He turned off the light, rolled himself in a ball on the cot and welcomed the darkness and the pain. When he lived in
Chicago with Catherine, when the headaches came, he would strip to his undershorts and curl in darkness on the cool tiles of the bathroom, his head on a bath towel.
Catherine understood. She asked no questions, offered no help because there was none to give.
Lew slipped into a deep sleep.
When he woke up, the headache was gone. He tried to go back to sleep but fleeting images snapped by like photographs on a home projector: Pappas smiling with his gun to his head; Santoro slumped over his desk; Milt Holiger’s pleading and defeated eyes; Victor Lee sitting in a tavern in Urbana and blankly looking at nothing to do and nowhere to go; and then Catherine being hit by the car, a series of flying shots, ending with a close-up of Catherine at the instant of impact, surprise and pain. Lew had not been there when it happened, but it was the most vivid of his images.
He sat up, got a towel from the closet, dried himself, deposited the towel in his small hamper and put on a short-sleeved gray garage sale pullover with a collar and the words TOP SAIL embossed on the pocket.
He took the blanket from the window, letting in the sun. He looked at his watch. It was a few minutes after seven in the morning. Lew went into his office, picked up the phone and punched in the number of the Texas Bar & Grille.
Half an hour later, Ames came up the cracked concrete steps. He didn’t use the rust-tinged railing for balance. He was straight-backed and moving slowly. When he got to the top step, he looked at the window and his eyes met Lew’s. Both men knew that the other had made no progress in finding Lilla and the Manteen brothers.
Ames opened the door and stepped into the office closing the door behind him. Lew turned away from the window.
“Borg wants you to make the payoff and get the girl back,” Lew said.
“Suits me,” said Ames.
“There won’t be any money in the payoff bag.”
“Didn’t think there would be.”
“I don’t want them killed,” Lew said, moving to his desk and sitting. “I think Borg does.”
“How about some serious wounding?” asked Ames.
“If you have to,” said Lew.
The phone rang a few minutes later.
Ames picked it up, said “McKinney,” listened and hung up. “Ten this morning,” said Ames. “I drop the bag in the trash can near the playground in Wilkerson Park. Then I’m supposed to walk over to the fence around the softball fields and watch for them to let the girl go. I’m guessing it’ll be a long walk for her and a quick run to the trash for the money. When they see the bag’s empty, they’ll have the girl in easy gunshot distance.”
Lew rubbed his right hand across his balding head.
“Anyplace to hide in the park?” Lew asked.
“They picked a good spot.”
“Okay,” said Lew. “We do it, but why are they doing the exchange in the daylight instead of tonight? Why stay here longer than they have to? They know Borg. They know he must be trying to find them.”
“Don’t know,” said Ames.
Lilla still had no idea that she had been kidnapped and certainly no idea that her half brothers were seriously considering killing her, that is to the extent that they could be serious about anything.
Lilla had no illusions about her own intelligence. She was no genius, except maybe compared to Matt and Chet, but she was smart enough.
She wanted to go out.
The brothers were staring at the television screen on which a big-bellied man in a red flannel shirt was shooting at clay pigeons being released a few hundred feet away.
“Pow,” said Chet as a piece of clay in the television sky exploded.
“Sitting in a hotel room,” she had said, “is not my idea of fun.”
“This is good stuff,” said Matt, eyes still on the fat man with the shotgun.
Lilla was thin, short for her age, long, straight brown hair down her back, eyes blue and wide. She looked younger than her thirteen years.
“We can watch TV in Kane,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“We’ve got business in a little while,” said Chet.
“Business,” she said. “What kind of business?”
“Good business,” said Chet. “Right?”
“Right,” Matt agreed.
“We got you a pizza last night,” said Chet. “Later today we take you to Disney.”
“Disney World? You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.
“No shit, true,” said Matt.
“On the way we get another pizza,” she insisted. “And after Disney we go to another movie. Pizza, Disney and a movie in that order or just take me back home. I don’t have a good time there but I don’t have a bad one either, and when my mom tells me something’s gonna happen, it happens.”
“We are going to Disney World,” said Chet. “Like the guys on Super Bowl say. We are going to Disney World.”
“Pizza with olives, black olives, and those little anchovy fish,” she said.
Both Matt and Chet hated both black olives and anchovies, but this was most likely the girl’s last day on earth and since she was not going to live long enough to have it, they could promise her not only the damned pizza, Disney World and the movie, but a guaranteed spot on
American Idol.
SOMEONE WAS KNOCKING
at the door. Knock. Loud. And a voice.
“You in there Phone-es-ca?”
Lew and Ames both recognized the voice.
Lew opened the door and there, hands now in the pockets of his oversized blue sweatshirt, stood Darrell Caton.
“You look like shit,” said Darrell, stepping in.
“Thanks,” said Lew. “Is this better?”
He picked his Cubs cap up from the desk and put it on his head. Darrell made a face indicating that Lew was beyond grooming. He looked over at Ames and smiled.
“You packin’ today, old man?”
“Respect,” said Ames.
“I ain’t disrespectin’ you,” said Darrell. “You are the man.”
“And stop talking like that,” Ames ordered.
“Hard not to,” said Darrell. “I’m right on time. It’s Saturday, remember, Fonesca? What we got goin’ today?”
Darrell was thirteen, thin, black, curious and often angry. He had been given a choice. Shape up or go into the system, juvenile detention, maybe a series of foster homes. His mother was twenty-nine and had been ready to give up on him. Sally Porovsky had conned Lew into being Darrell’s Big Brother. It was difficult to tell if the idea had appealed less to Darrell than to Lew. Their lack of enthusiasm for the experiment had been the one bond they had between them.
Over their first three Saturdays together things had changed, primarily because Lew had been involved with cases and had to take Darrell along. Now it was clear that Darrell Caton looked forward to Saturdays with Lew.
“So,” said Darrell, bouncing to the desk and sitting behind it, “what’ve we got going? Missing mom? Murder?”
Darrell was looking over the things on Lew’s desk.
“Something like that,” said Lew.
“Shit,” said Darrell with a smile. “Then let’s get to it, man.”
Darrell picked up the photograph of Chet, Matt and Lilla.
“Saw these two last night,” Darrell said. “Twins, right? Saw the girl too. Skinny kid.”
He put the photograph back on the desk and looked up.
“What?” asked Darrell.
“You saw them?”
“Yeah, pizza place over on the Trail. My mom took me there last night. You know, family bonding, that kind of shit. She really just wants to keep an eye on me Friday and Saturday nights. Goes down with me. I get to keep an eye on her. She’s a long time crack free.”
“You saw them?” Lew repeated.
“Yeah, man. I told you,” Darrell said with irritation. “Place on the Trail, right where all those motels are, used to be ho heaven. Now it’s full of Canadians and Germans and whatever.”
“Hand of God,” said Ames.
“Coincidence,” said Lew. “Sarasota’s not all that big.”
“Whatever it is,” said Ames, “let’s do it before they head for the park.”
Darrell bounced out of the chair, smiling.
They went in Lew’s rental car. The first stop was the Texas Bar & Grille where Ames went in and came out again in less than three minutes wearing his slicker. The second stop was DeAngelo’s Pizza and Subs on Tamiami Trail. DeAngelo’s didn’t open till five on Saturday.
There were motels on both sides of Tamiami Trail.
It was twenty minutes after nine.
“Split up?” asked Ames.
“Right,” said Lew.
“I’ll go across,” said Ames.
“I’ll go with you,” said Darrell.
“You stay with me,” said Lew.
“Cowboy’s got the gun under that coat,” said Darrell. “He’s the action.”
“Come on,” said Lew.
“Whatever,” said Darrell.
Traffic was Saturday morning light, but it was still the Trail, which stretched north for a few dozen miles and south for a few hundred miles right into Miami.
Lew and Darrell tried their third motel clerk, showing the photograph and Lew coming up with another ten-dollar bill, which he fully intended to get reimbursed for from Earl Borg.
As they had come out of the motel, Lew looked across the four lanes of the Trail. Between the traffic he saw Ames in front of the Blue Gulf Motel, his right hand up. He had found them.
It was time to go.
Lilla was dressed in jeans and the clean Abercrombie green shirt they had bought yesterday at Goodwill for fifty cents. Her hair was tied back.
Matt and Chet said they were going to Disney World this morning, and then back home. She didn’t believe them. They were terrible liars and sometimes like on television they walked across the room from her and talked, thinking she couldn’t hear them.
What she did know was that she had more than enough of the two of them, thank you. She wanted to go home. She also knew they were nervous. They had kept smiling at her all through pizza the night before. They had the same smiles today. They had a real one that was lopsided, all on one side of the face. She hadn’t seen that one for a long time. Then they had the one they had used last night and this morning, when they remembered it, straight across, cheeks up, line of teeth screaming out for a dentist.
She knew that they were going to meet someone in a park. She knew Chet and Matt were both carrying guns in their pockets. The guns weren’t unusual for them. Far as Lilla knew, they hadn’t shot anyone with them. But maybe she was wrong. What they did do in and around Kane were very odd jobs and beating people up for the Wikiup Men’s Club, where girls from as far as Gainesville, college girls, came to wiggle nude for truckers and old guys.
“Let’s go,” said Chet.
Chet was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and a dirty white cowboy hat. Matt was wearing jeans, a blue T-shirt and a dirty blue cowboy hat. Both of them wore boots. They were in their hog-dog costumes. There hadn’t been a hog-dog or a dog-dog for a long time, at least a year and it had been a lot longer since the man, Earl Borg, had stopped coming. The brothers had run the fights by themselves, but people didn’t like them and they didn’t take care of the animals. Dogs and hogs died. Dogs and hogs cost money.
Lilla took the handles of her bag, which had also been purchased at Goodwill for two dollars, and stood up.
“Simple,” Chet in white whispered to Matt in blue, “We check the parked cars. We know there’s no place in the park to hide, but you stay in the car with Lilla. I go to the trash can. Somebody’ll be there. If he pulls a gun, you put your gun to Lilla’s head.”
“I know, Chet,” Matt said wearily.
“Does it hurt to go over it again?”
“A little.”
“Well then, just you suffer for a while,” said Chet. “Everything goes right, I get the bag with the money and wave to you. You let her get out of the car. Whoever’s there will look at her. That’s when I shoot him. You see him go down, you shoot Lilla.”
“I’d rather not kill Lilla, Chet.”
Chet sighed.
“Lilla and whoever’s gonna be there never did us harm,” Matt went on.
“They will if we don’t shoot ’em.”
“What’re you two talkin’ about?” Lilla asked.
“Business,” said Chet. “Let’s go.”
Matt opened the door and walked out, Lilla behind him, Chet behind her. When Chet closed the door, Ames stood up, shotgun in hand, behind the blue Kia parked in front of their door.
“Hands where I can see ’em,” Ames said calmly.
“What’s this?” asked Lilla, shaking her head, getting angry. “This the gunfight at the all right corral or something? You, Wyatt Earp. We got no money.”
“About twenty bucks,” said Chet. “It’s all yours.”
He started to reach down.
“Hands where I can see them,” Ames repeated. “This isn’t about the money in your pocket. Child, come over here and get behind me.”
“No,” said Lilla.
Then she saw a man get out of a car parked in a space behind the yellow-slickered gunfighter. The man with a baseball cap pulled down on his head came slowly. Through the rear window of his car she could see the face of a black boy about her age. He was smiling.
“What you want?” asked Matt.
“Two things,” said the man with the cap. “Lilla comes with us.”
“No,” she said.
“Young lady,” said Ames. “These two plan to kill you.”
“No. Why would they … ?”
“Money,” said Lew.
“My father wants me dead?”
“No,” said Lew. “These two want him to pay forty thousand dollars to get you back alive.”
“Back? I’ve never been with him in the first place,” she said. Then she looked from Matt to Chet and said, “Forty thousand dollars. You told me about this, we could have asked for a
hundred thousand and you wouldn’t have to be thinking about killing me. I give up on you two.”
“Someone’s going to see us,” said Lew. “Lilla, walk over to my car now and get in.”
“I don’t—”
“My friend will shoot,” said Lew.
Ames nodded and aimed the gun at Chet’s head.
Lilla sighed and bag in hand brushed between Lew and Ames. Ames’s arm moved and Matt started to reach back.
“Don’t,” warned Ames.
Matt didn’t.
“Get in your car,” said Lew very calmly. “And drive up I-75 as far north as you can go with the gas you can buy. Do not stop in Kane. Do not return to Sarasota. Do not return to Florida. We will find you and my friend here will blow your heads off. Now, the guns. Slowly put them on the ground and get into your car.”
They did as they were told. Lew picked up the guns. Lew had already searched the Manteen brothers’ car. No guns, no drugs, no alcohol.
Matt was in the passenger seat, Chet in the driver’s seat, his arm resting on the open window. Ames, gun at his side now, stood next to the car looking down at Chet who had tilted his hat back.
“If we come back, you old fart, you’ll be long dead of old age,” said Chet.
“Be best if your brother drives,” Ames answered.
“Why?” asked Chet.
Ames lifted the shotgun high and brought it down hard in one move.
“Your arm is broken.”
Chet screamed in pain.
“Move over and drive your brother to a hospital,” said Ames to Matt. “Maybe up in Tampa. Atlanta if he can make it.”
Chet, moaning, rolled into the passenger seat as his brother came around and got behind the wheel.
“You break my arm too and who’s gonna drive us out of town?” Matt asked, voice quivering.
“Just you drive away,” said Ames.
“If you stop at an emergency room—” Lew began.
“In Atlanta,” added Ames.
“—your brother broke his arm in a baseball game,” said Lew.
“We don’t play baseball,” said Matt.
“And it doesn’t look like your brother’s gonna take it up now,” said Ames. “Drive.”
Matt drove. Chet moaned. The car pulled out of the motel driveway and made a screeching left turn, just missing a red truck.
“Should have killed them,” said Ames at Lew’s side. “They were going to kill the girl.”
“I’ve seen enough dead people,” said Lew.
“So have we all,” said Ames.
Earl Borg answered the phone on the third ring. He could have answered the sound at the first ring. He had it on the small table next to his almost silent treadmill in his office-den. He had been running and listening to Bach’s violin concerti. Blindness had gradually turned him into a lover of classical music. Before his loss of sight he had no interest in music of any kind. Now, he had speakers in every room and his stereo system had access to almost three dozen commercial-free classical
music stations in addition to the huge collection he had accumulated.
Blindness had also made Earl Borg acutely aware of texture. All the furniture in his apartment was chosen not by color but by how it felt and smelled. He had a decorator, who kept him from forgetting that other people were only barely aware of what he felt and smelled.
Pebble stone and mosaic tabletops, leather chairs, fine shelf-sized marble and wood sculpture were always within reach.
It was good, he frequently thought, to be able to afford everything he wanted. All it took was good investments and years of barely legal and quite illegal business deals.
At the first ring, Borg had pressed the cool-down button on the treadmill. On the second ring, he had muted his sound system. On the third ring, he picked up the phone.
“Yes?” he said.
“She’s safe,” said Lew.
“Did they—?”
“No, they didn’t touch her.”